Category: News

Matthew McConaughey isn’t exactly known for being a celebrity who leaps into political discussions, so it was pretty unusual to see him talk about the 2020 election results and “liberal hypocrisy” with actor/comedian Russell Brand. While stopping by Brand’s”Under the Skin” podcast, McConaughey joined his host in slamming Hollywood’s treatment of Trump voters, particularly those who are still clinging to hope that the president’s “Elite Strike Force” lead team led by Rudy Giuliani will flip the election results away from Joe Biden.

“There are a lot on that illiberal left that absolutely condescend, patronize, and are arrogant towards the other 50 percent,” McConaughey opined after Brand said that he doesn’t like hearing “offhanded” remarks about how Trump or Brexit voters are “dumb.” McConaughey then chastised his liberal friends who refused to believe that Trump won in 2016, but are mocking Trump voters for doing the same. Via Page Six:

“I’m sure you saw it in our industry when Trump was voted in four years ago, they were in denial that was real. Some of them were in absolute denial,” McConaughey said. He suggested that it would now be hypocritical for them to expect Trump voters to give up on challenging President-elect Joe Biden’s win.

“[Now] it looks like Biden’s our guy. Now you’ve got the right that’s in denial, ’cause their side has fake news. And I understand, they’ve been fed fake news. No one knows what the hell to believe, right? So they’re putting down their last bastion of defense.”

In a move that’s sure to go over well on social media, McConaughey ended his remarks by calling for his Hollywood friends to meet in the middle. “Let’s get aggressively centric. I dare you,” he said.

(Via Russell Brand on YouTube)

Keeping up with new music can be exhausting, even impossible. From the weekly album releases to standalone singles dropping on a daily basis, the amount of music is so vast it’s easy for something to slip through the cracks. Even following along with the Uproxx recommendations on a daily basis can be a lot to ask, so every Monday we’re offering up this rundown of the best new music this week.

This week saw Rico Nasty’s long-awaited debut, new tunes from Lil Baby, Mariah Carey return to her Christmas wave. Yeah, it was a great week for new music. Check out the highlights below.

Rico Nasty — Nightmare Vacation

In Rico Nasty’s new Uproxx digital cover story, she told us of working on her new album with Kenny Beats and 100 Gecs’ Dylan Brady, saying, “Because Dylan and I are both so weird and sh*t, we don’t criticize each other. We just work out like that and try to fix it. But I can be in a booth with Kenny and he’s like, ‘Nah, bruh, you can do this better.’ So we could go back and forth, low-key arguing. Both of them are totally different, but I probably wouldn’t be who I am today if I didn’t have such amazing people in the studio letting me do what I want to do and then also giving me constructive criticism.”

Aminé — Limbo (Deluxe)

Deluxe editions of albums have become a new beast in 2020, and Aminé is the latest rapper to hop on that train. Instead of dropping it right after Limbo‘s release, though, he waited a few months and put out what is essentially an album of new material.

Lil Baby — “On Me” and “Errbody”

Lil Baby just capped off a tremendous 2020 (as tremendous as anybody’s 2020 can be, anyway) by celebrating his 26th birthday. He marked the occasion by dropping a pair of new songs, “On Me” and “Errybody,” the videos for both songs equipping the rapper with Fast And Furious levels of transportation options and intensities.

Juice WRLD and Benny Blanco — “Real Sh*t”

Speaking of birthdays, Juice WRLD would have celebrated his 22nd a few days ago, and Benny Blanco observed the day by dropping “Real Sh*t,” a song they worked on together before Juice’s death. In a message accompanying the release, he revealed the song was the first one they ever recorded together and noted, “It was the first time I saw his magic.”

Mariah Carey — “Oh Santa” Feat. Ariana Grande and Jennifer Hudson

There’s no way Mariah Carey was going to let a Christmas pass without putting her stamp on it. This year, she dropped a new holiday special and the Ariana Grande-featuring single “Oh Santa,” which proved to be perfect meme material for Grande.

100 Gecs — “Sympathy 4 The Grinch”

On the opposite end of the Christmas music spectrum sits 100 Gecs, who introduced a characteristically warped new brand of holiday music with “Sympathy 4 The Grinch.” Like the character referenced in the title, they too have a bone to pick with Santa and the season of which he is emblematic, so they plan a nasty surprise for the jolly one.

24kGoldn — “Coco” Feat. DaBaby

24kGoldn has been one of the year’s biggest rising stars and has a No. 1 single on “Mood” to prove it. Now he has linked up with another young hip-hop stud in DaBaby for “Coco,” on which the pair try to get inside a romantic interest’s head and figure out what it is they’re looking for.

Run The Jewels — “The Ground Below (Royal Jewels Mix)” Feat. Royal Blood

El-P and Killer Mike make the most of the guests they get to work with them, and they’ve done so again on the “Royal Jewels” remix of “The Ground Below.” They got UK duo Royal Blood to put a hard rock edge on the track, and RTJ’s in-your-face style works beautifully against a backdrop of aggressive guitar and punishing drum work.

Drakeo The Ruler — We Know The Truth

This summer, Drakeo The Ruler dropped a truly one-of-a-kind album with Thank You For Using GTL, for which he recorded his vocals over a prison phone system. Now that the rapper is out from behind bars, he has returned with his first post-prison album, which impressively was released less than a month after he was free.

Death Cab For Cutie — The Georgia EP

If you’re just hearing about this one now, you’re too late. The Georgia EP was only available on Bandcamp for 24 hours last week, and it saw Death Cab cover a handful of songs by Georgia-based artists (like the project that Jason Isbell has promised), including R.E.M., TLC, Cat Power, and a couple others.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Bob Dylan’s library of music could go up against anybody’s. Under his belt, he has legendary singles like “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” and “Like A Rolling Stone” and albums like Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde. Even his latest album, this year’s Rough And Rowdy Ways, has received overwhelmingly positive critical reception. Now, all of that music has a new owner, as Bob Dylan has sold the publishing rights of his song catalog to Universal Music Publishing Group (UMG) in a huge new deal.

The sale includes over 600 copyrights that span about 60 years, with features material ranging from 1962’s “Blowin’ In The Wind” to this year’s “Murder Most Foul.” Variety reports that while the terms of the deal were not disclosed, a source told the publication the deal “was easily in nine figures,” which isn’t a huge leap to make considering 80 percent of Stevie Nicks’ catalog sold for about $100 million within the past week. Variety speculates the Dylan deal “probably drew a number well above that.” For additional context, Taylor Swift’s Big Machine master recordings sold recently for $300 million.

UMG chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge said in a statement, “As someone who began his career in music publishing, it is with enormous pride that today we welcome Bob Dylan to the UMG family. It’s no secret that the art of songwriting is the fundamental key to all great music, nor is it a secret that Bob is one of the very greatest practitioners of that art. Brilliant and moving, inspiring and beautiful, insightful and provocative, his songs are timeless — whether they were written more than half a century ago or yesterday. It is no exaggeration to say that his vast body of work has captured the love and admiration of billions of people all around the world. I have no doubt that decades, even centuries from now, the words and music of Bob Dylan will continue to be sung and played — and cherished — everywhere.”

Aside from Grainge, Dylan has also received praise recently from Paul McCartney, Barack Obama, and Uproxx’s Steven Hyden; See where Rough And Rowdy Ways ranks on Hyden’s list of favorite 2020 albums here.

When in doubt, go to the math. That’s what we’ve done here with our list of best television shows of 2020. Five of our writers submitted their personal top ten lists, and then we assigned point values based on each entry (10 points for each person’s top choice, 1 point for their tenth, with the scores descending in between), and then we added it all up, and then we had our collective list of the 10 best shows of the year, which actually contains 12 shows because of ties. It’s kind of a mess, honestly, but at least the cold hard numbers give us an excuse for our inability to follow our own simple guidelines. And it should be a mess this year. Everything was a mess this year. All things considered, our top 10 shows of the year containing 12 shows might be one of the more normal things that happened in 2020. And it gave us the ability to add more good shows, which was nice, because there were so many good shows to watch and talk about this year. In a way, we’re doing all of you a favor, really.

So what we’re really saying here, if you get right down to it, is that you are welcome. Unless your favorite show didn’t make our list. In that case we are very sorry. It was out of our hands. Because of the math.

10. (tie) Betty (11 points)

Television shows can be funny, or thrilling, or sexy, or scary, but they’re rarely “cool,” the way your favorite indie band that no one has heard of is “cool.” HBO’s Betty is cool. It’s almost intimidating how cool it is (have I crossed the street to avoid loitering teens, because I don’t want them judging me, someone who is decidedly not cool? Yes). But the real-life skateboarders that Betty follows, whether it’s Kirt and her rat or Indigo and her Gucci coat, are so inviting and charismatic that they would welcome your dorky self into their cool-as-hell skateboarding troupe (no guys, though). Betty will make you long for sweltering summers spent with your friends, where the only item on your to-do list is “skateboard,” but mostly, it will make you feel cool. — Josh Kurp

10. (tie) Umbrella Academy (11 points)

This show’s second season proved to be a twist-filled blast that improved upon its predecessor (RIP Pogo and Mary K. Blige’s hitwoman). Yet it’s surprising that it all worked so well, really, because the world truly did not need any more dysfunctional, superpowered protagonists (and especially not a family full of them); yet this show turned out to be much more than that framing device. Like Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba’s comic book series, it gave these siblings a lot of heart. They’re self-tortured and loathing, and simply want to stop feeling so much emotional pain while, yes, stopping the apocalypse. As much as the audience does love to see them get down with their energy-slinging selves, too, the show blossoms the most when the characters struggle and succeed at battling their emotional demons. And the Texas time-travel thing added an expansive historical backdrop that fueled a ton of socially relevant plot points without being heavy-handed. It’s no wonder the show’s so beloved, and thank god Elliot Page is still on board because Vanya kicks ass; and Robert Sheehan, boosting his drug-addled, sexually fluid character who communes with the dead into fan-favorite status, remains the coolest. — Kimberly Ricci

10. (tie) Harley Quinn (11 points)

One of the nicest developments of this year was Harley Quinn moving from the DC Universe streaming network to HBO Max. It was nice for a bunch of reasons, too, starting with the thing where it gave lots of people access to a show that had quietly been very good for two seasons. It’s funny and foul and sweet, filled with cussing and delightfully stupid jokes and surprisingly tender moments between its characters, who grow and change and learn in a way you probably wouldn’t expect from a cartoon spinoff series about a Batman villain. It is so good. This cannot be stressed enough. Harley and Poison Ivy develop one of the best relationships on television. Kite Man, a man whose quote-unquote superpower is “flying a kite well,” becomes an integral figure in the action. Bane is reimagined as an insecure doofus who spends large chunks of the show trying to angle for a nicer chair at the Legion of Doom. It’s a whole thing. You could do a lot worse in a show. Chill out and watch Harley Quinn if you haven’t. Come on. — Brian Grubb

9. The Boys (12 points)

You know what’s more fun than worshipping superheroes? Dumping on them, which is what The Boys continued to do in its second season. In fact, the show perfected its driving theme, giving us new villains that felt disturbingly relevant, over-the-top violence so visceral it made us nauseous, and Karl Urban driving a speed boat straight through a humpback whale. Eric Kripke and his writing team doubled-down on the best parts of the show’s first season – the destructive megalomania of Anthony Starr’s Homelander, the weird, beautiful friendships of characters like Frenchie and Kimiko – while adding antagonists powerful enough to shake up their world. Crude and crass, filled with nightmarish visuals of grown men slurping breast milk and human gills being voiced by Patton Oswalt, season two gave absolutely zero f*cks and that kind of brazen storytelling deserves to be celebrated. — Jessica Toomer

7. (tie) The Crown (14 points)

Consider the challenge faced by The Crown as it runs toward the present with increasing speed, facing greater foreknowledge of the history and personalities that fill up the screen. Simply put, while some in the viewing audience may have had a passing understanding of who and how Churchill and the young Queen Elizabeth were thanks to history books, many have a crisp idea of Prince Charles and, specifically, Princess Diana and their doomed marriage. From news reports of the time to the mountain of books, documentaries, and interviews that have been generated since the ‘90s, a tabloid forest fire became an eternal flame that many still can’t look away from. Because of this, The Crown’s fourth season ran the risk of exhaustion or unoriginality. And yet it went down as a triumph, playing in the margins of a convenient but at times legitimately sweet courtship before turning sour largely thanks to Charles’ cruelty, sense of entitlement, and the dysfunctional suffocating burdens of his family and title. Is it all true? I don’t know, but it was captivating and felt true to the story as we know it now almost 30 years later. — Jason Tabrys

7. (tie) I May Destroy You (14 points)

Michaela Coel, man. She created, wrote, and starred in a fearless show and wasn’t afraid to take risks by spiking a very serious subject — sexual consent in many, layered contexts — with pitch-black humor, and she pulled off the gutsiest finale of the year (fight me). Watching her character whip through a nightclub, limbs flying everywhere, announcing herself as a “twisted Firestarter” to her rapist (before serving him comeuppance) was astounding. What I appreciate most are the wonderfully imperfect characters drawn by Coel as she built toward the end. Arabella is fully-dimensional, rather than defined by her trauma; she’s flawed and damn proud of that fact. And as twisted as this sounds, I do re-watch the finale episode every now and then because it’s electrifying to relive all of those alternate endings building toward vengeance and, eventually, a cathartic and meditative resolution. — Kimberly Ricci

5. (tie) The Queen’s Gambit (15 points)

Well, guess what: There’s a show about chess on this list. Can you believe it? Can you believe a show about chess was riveting and compelling enough to beat hundreds of flashier options, many with pedigrees that look better on paper? It’s a little startling, really, unless you watched The Queen’s Gambit, in which case it makes perfect sense. What a terrific show this was, largely thanks to its star, Anya Taylor-Joy, and the lasers she stared through a rotating crew of overconfident chess dopes. She took the character on a twisting ride from adolescence to adulthood and from troubled youth, uh, slightly less troubled adult, and made the whole thing fascinating even as she pushed the… horsies across the… chess table. That was the other nice thing about the show: it worked even if you had no idea what was going on in the very intense matches she was winning against those dopes. Almost a magic trick, really. — Brian Grubb

5. (tie) How to With John Wilson (15 points)

So much of How To With John Wilson’s goodness is amplified by the timing of its release (when we most needed a reminder of humanity’s endearing quirks). But it’s more than an anthropologically valuable snapshot of life before the pandemic. The layers that Wilson explores when it comes to the mundanity of life and the lessons we can learn if we examine that behavior is the kind of thing that’s built for all seasons, making this not just one of the best shows of 2020 but one that should be reexplored (and hopefully continued) in 2021. — Jason Tabrys

3. (tie) Lovecraft Country (20 points)

No one knew what to expect when J.J. Abrams and Jordan Peele got together to executive produce with Misha Green in the series creator seat, but damn if this show didn’t come through at exactly the right time. Audacious and astounding and full of gleeful genre-bends, this year’s season culminated by killing the hero and taking out the ultimate Karen. The show also proved itself to be a worthy (if probably similarly a one-season pony) successor to Watchmen and even performed its own retelling of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Across the board, the ensemble cast — including Jurnee Smollett, Jonathan Majors, Michael K. Williams, Abbey Lee, and Wunmi Mosaku — crushed their roles, all to reinforce how Black history and horror are often interchangeable terms. And we got a lot of pulpy lit and Jackie Robinson metaphors, along with a freaking pet monster after monsters ate bad guys. We got space-and-time travel and exorcisms and a bionic arm. It was simply nuts, and I loved all of it. — Kimberly Ricci

3. (tie) Better Call Saul (20 points)

The most recent season of Better Call Saul premiered in February, continued through March, and ended in April. I remember almost nothing from the early days of quarantine because time is meaningless now, but I do remember how much I loved Saul. This is true of every season, but especially this season, the show’s finest to date. The desert episode, the room service burger, the glass bottle tossing, the return (debut?) of Hank and Gomez, the least romantic wedding ever, the pee chugging (I would like to forget this one), the ants and the ice cream (this one, too), the finger guns, the Lalo jump, the failed assassination attempt on Lalo (poor Nacho), basically everything Lalo did. It was an unforgettable season for one of TV’s best shows, and the rare spinoff that might be better than the original series. If only the Emmys were paying attention… — Josh Kurp

2. Ted Lasso (28 points)

Ted Lasso shouldn’t be as good as it is. Its plot isn’t particularly inventive; its main character is derived from a commercial skit that mined laughs from mocking stereotypical culture clashes. And yet, in 2020, it became the show we all needed. Most of that has to do with Jason Sudeikis, who gives a pitch-perfect performance as a fish-out-of-water football coach crossing the pond to try his hand at helming a new team for an entirely different kind of sport. Full of puns and dad-jokes and surprisingly philosophical nuggets of wisdom, his Ted Lasso is basically a teddy bear in human form. But the half-hour comedy also benefits from an impressive supporting cast and a team of writers who know what to do with them. More than that, there’s an unapologetic optimism to the humor here – you’ll see slapstick spit-takes and snappy one-liners, but you’ll never see characters punching down for the sake of laughs – something we didn’t realize we were lacking in our workplace comedies until now. And if Sudeikis’ reaction to that “Caesar you later” pun didn’t leave you literally lol-ing, you’re just lying to yourself. — Jessica Toomer

1. What We Do In The Shadows (32 points)

Jackie Daytona. That name alone, the one used by Matt Berry’s character, Laszlo, in the episode titled “On the Run,” in which he flees a threat from guest star Mark Hamill and starts a life as a toothpick-chawing, volleyball-loving Pennsylvania bartender, might have been enough to get this show into the top 10. It was, and is, that good. And if that had been the entire legacy of this season, it would have been a fine one. Thankfully, however, the episode also shined a big bright spotlight — no sunlight, please — on what was quickly becoming the most reliably funny show on television. And it convinced more people to double back and check it out. And those people were in for a treat. The show’s second season was absolutely littered with great gags and great performances — Mark Proksch is a genius as “energy vampire” Colin Robinson, who feeds on boring and annoying people and has his own standout episode where he goes to work in an office — and a lovely little arc that tied it all together. When 2020 started, you probably didn’t expect a show about bumbling vampires in Staten Island to top this list. But a lot of stuff happened this year that you probably didn’t expect. This is one of the good ones. One of the best ones, some might say, whether they’re television critics or viewers at home or regular human bartenders. — Brian Grubb

Bill Lawrence, the former showrunner of Scrubs and Cougar Town, among others, is currently killing it as showrunner of Apple TV’s Ted Lasso, arguably the best new show of 2020 and — along with Mythic Quest — the best reason to subscribe to Apple TV. Lawrence, however, has had a tumultuous history with network television, so he’s probably very happy to be working in an environment with far fewer restrictions, especially now that Ted Lasso has been renewed for two more seasons (and according to Lawrence, Lasso is a planned, three-season TV series).

That freedom did not always exist for Lawrence, and back in his Scrubs days, he had to deal with Standards and Practices, otherwise known as the TV censors. The way that Standards and Practices applies the rules has always been a little inexplicable, but in this week’s episode of the “Fake Doctors, Real Friends” podcast, Lawrence provides an example of one of the more absurd applications.

It involved Scrubs‘ Christmas episode in 2004, “My Rule of Thumb,” and what Standards and Practices did in this episode “drove [Lawrence] insane.” The episode centers on a patient with terminal cancer, and as originally written, Elliot and Carla were “out and about” trying to help the cancer patient deal with the pain by finding her some marijuana (this was before medical marijuana was commonly available). When Lawrence handed the script in, however, Standards and Practices told him they couldn’t air an episode where a “physician and nurse are driving around trying to find someone they can buy pot off of.”

Baffled, Lawrence offered another suggestion, which would both offer an “easy fix” and reveal the “hypocrisy” of Standards and Practices. Instead of having the cancer patient search for weed, “we had the woman who was dying be a virgin and Elliot and Carla go look for a man-whore so she can get laid.” When Lawrence turned that into Standards, they said, they said laughed, said it was funny, and that it “was fine” to air.

“So, even though it’s proven by so many medical studies that” marijuana is effective for patients dealing with the side effects of chemo, “doctors can’t go get a patient who is dying some marijuana, but they can go anywhere to get them a man-whore so she can have sex in a hospital.” TV censorship is weird.

Side note: It’s probably worth tracking down this episode of Scrubs, because it was the one where Kelso introduced his most famous catchphrase: “What has two thumbs and doesn’t give a crap? This guy.”

Source: Fake Doctors, Real Friends

Dolly Parton’s version of her biggest song, “I Will Always Love You,” performed well on the country charts back in the day. It became an enduring global hit, though, when Whitney Houston recorded her version. Now, Parton thinks that a modern star could do something similar with another classic song of hers from the same period, “Jolene.”

Parton told The Big Issue, “‘Jolene’ has been recorded more than any other song that I have ever written. It has been recorded worldwide over 400 times in lots of different languages, by lots of different bands. The White Stripes did a wonderful job of it, and many other people. But nobody’s ever had a really big hit record on it. I’ve always hoped somebody might do [that] someday, someone like Beyonce.”

In the piece, she also wrote about the song’s background, revealing (as she has before) that it was possibly written on the same day as “I Will Always Love You,” saying, “‘Jolene’ and ‘I Will Always Love You’ were on the same album [1974’s Jolene]. In fact, they came from the same cassette, so it is possible that I wrote those two songs in the same day. ‘Jolene’ is a song about… you know, I’ve got my pride and I’ve got my strength. But when I write a song, I’m vulnerable at those moments. I leave my heart out on my sleeve. I’ve always said I have to leave my heart open in order to receive those kind of songs. I have to feel everything to be a real songwriter. And yes, a lot of my songs are kind of melancholy. Some of them are sad, and some of them are pitiful. And I mean for them to be pitiful, those really sad songs like ‘Little Sparrow’ or ‘Jeannie’s Afraid Of The Dark.’ I have a big imagination and I become whoever I’m writing about. It’s like starring in a movie; I am that character in that song. So when I wrote it, I was ‘Jolene.’”

Read the full piece here.

A fun way to kill 20 minute is to look at the winners for the MTV Movie & TV Awards (formerly MTV Movie Awards) over the years. For instance, did you know Sin City‘s Jessica Alba won “Sexiest Performance” in 2006 over Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo‘s Rob Schneider? Of course you did. But how about the Ham and Cheese Sandwich from Smoke upsetting the Submarine Sandwich With Tomatoes and Provolone from GoldenEye to take home Best Sandwich in a Movie? I’m still outraged. My personal favorite (existing) category, however, is Best Kiss. It’s been around since 1992, when Anna Chlumsky and Macaulay Culkin won for My Girl. Other winners include Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst (Spider-Man), Ashton Sanders and Jharrel Jerome (Moonlight), and Sarah Michelle Gellar and Selma Blair (Cruel Intentions).

“Looking back 20 years ago… A kiss. Between two young actresses. On screen. In a mainstream teen movie. In 2000,” Blair wrote on Instagram ahead of Sunday’s MTV Movie and TV Awards: Greatest of All Time special. “It was a sweet and delicious kiss for my character, Cecile. And she wanted more. And I must say it was a really good kiss. What feels so delicious to me now is how it isn’t shocking in 2020. It stands for a shift in thinking.” She also reunited with Michelle Gellar to give the kiss a 2020 update.

That strand of spit hits differently now, y’know?

(Via Instagram)

It’s no surprise that Rudy Giuliani, who has been on a whirlwind Trump campaign “Strike Force” tour, tested positive for the coronavirus. However, the timing of said positive status is somewhat surprising, given that it’s going down two weeks after his hair-dye meltdown at an event where his son, Andrew, attended and tested positive the next day. Nonetheless, it turns out that Giuliani really is positive now, and no one knows when he was infected, but there’s a good chance that he was exposed (and possibly contagious) during a public hearing in Michigan. This would be the same “election fraud” hearing in which he apparently passed gas, and it’s also the same one where a wild wine lady made it even weirder. It’s all a blur, right?

At this Michigan hearing, Rudy asked a witness (who was sitting next to him) to remove her mask. Here’s a video clip, courtesy of Fox 17’s Aaron Parseghian on Twitter. Rudy asks the woman if she would be “comfortable” removing her mask while testifying, “so that people could hear you more clearly.” Spoiler alert: she was not comfortable doing so and pushed back.

As The Independent reveals, this woman has been identified as Jessy Jacob, a city clerk’s office worker. Jessy was Giuliani’s first witness at the hearing, which was jam-packed at the Anderson House Office Building (a state government building, unlike the Hyatt venue of last week’s Arizona hearing) in Lansing, Michigan. Rudy spoke at this hearing for over three hours while, you know, not wearing a freaking mask.

(Via Aaron Parseghian on Twitter & The Independent)

In some respects, Dionne Warwick could be considered old-fashioned. For example, Warwick (who turns 80 years old on December 12) doesn’t get why artists today have the word “The” in their stage names or intentionally spell words wrong, and she spent part of her weeknd (intentional misspelling) going after some of the most famous offenders (all in good fun, of course).

Her first target was Chance The Rapper, at whom she tweeted, “Hi, @chancetherapper. If you are very obviously a rapper why did you put it in your stage name? I cannot stop thinking about this.” She added in another tweet, “I am now Dionne the Singer,” before continuing with some praise for Chance: “‘Holy’ by Justin the Bieber @justinbieber and @chancetherapper is one of my favorite songs right now.”

Chance was beside himself after Warwick’s tweets, replying, “Sorry I’m still freaking out that u know who I am. This is amazing!” He added, “I will be whatever you wanna call me Ms Warwick. God bless you.” Warwick responded, “Of course I know you. You’re THE rapper. Let’s rap together. I’ll message you.”

After the Chance encounter, she moved on to her next target, tweeting, “If you have ‘The’ in your name i’m coming for you. I need answers today.” She then called out The Weeknd, tweeting, “The Weeknd is next. Why? It’s not even spelled correctly? @theweeknd.” Like Chance, The Weeknd responded by indicating that he was thrilled by the interaction, writing, “I just got roasted by Dionne Warwick and I feel honored! You just made my day.”

Warwick concluded this saga by confirming what most people already suspected: That her criticisms weren’t meant to be hostile. She tweeted, “It’s all in good fun. Of course I am just kidding. Those talented young men were good sports & very respectful! Enjoy your Sunday. Stay kind.”

This comes a few days after Warwick shouted out Taylor Swift, who, like Chance and The Weeknd, was also happy to receive some attention from the legend.

It’s a question that has haunted mankind since John Q. Pringles popped his first can: What does the Pringles guy look like below the neck?

His face is familiar — the mustache, the Tobias-esque hair — but his body remains a salty mystery. This topic consumes Last Week Tonight host John Oliver, in particular, who asked in a recent episode, “Is he tall or short? Does he have a lot of body hair, or is he completely smooth? When will he be able to tell me what his nipples look like? Are you talking hours, or are you talking days?” I can answer one of those (like Carlos Santana ft. Rob Thomas, he’s smooth), but as for the rest, Last Week Tonight returned on Sunday for a web exclusive clip where Oliver showed off the Pringles Guy fan art he’s received since making his non-Adam Driver obsession public, including this beauty.

“Hot Daddy Pring” is not official, though. That’s why Oliver wants to hear from Pringles itself. “Why is Pringles dodging our question here?” he wondered. “We’re truly not asking for a lot. We’ve seen a ton of excellent, excellent Pringles bods; we just need to know which one is canon.” Oliver knows so much useless information about Pringles, including that the mascot is named Julius Pringles, but “not the one thing I really want to know, which is: What is Julius Pringles working with from the neck down?” It’s probably this.

Your move, Pringles.